Recycled Lives: Art, Organ Donation, and the Final Beat
By SEVINCY
A Meeting That Changed My Perspective
At a wedding I attended in America, I met a distinguished figure in the medical field. Sometimes, when people from entirely different lives cross paths, new nutrients — new ideas — are born. Or maybe those ideas already exist and simply orchestrate encounters between the right people so they can manifest themselves.
In our later conversations, this man — who continued his life by performing organ transplants — helped me understand what real wealth might actually be. He quickly understood my bold energy and invited me to observe one of his surgeries. He gave me a task:
“Watch this operation, then go back to your country and use your art to bring attention to the importance of organ donation.”
His eerie but intriguing request became a valuable component of my recycling art series. I deeply appreciated this generosity — it was perhaps the most meaningful gift life had offered me: the human version of transforming one dying thing into something new. Organ donation…
The Mission – Art as an Organ Donor’s Voice
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America’s Transparent Yet Unequal Organ Donation System
The Mission — Art as an Organ Donor’s Voice
I was determined to carry out the task he gave me — perhaps better than even I expected of myself. But the idea of “raising awareness” began to bother me. In a country where the cultural and economic ecosystem is too underdeveloped for art to reach the mainstream, powerful people don’t compete to do good — they race like horses for money. The art scenes often revolve around showing off and building strategic social connections. These are artificial atmospheres for those chasing after identity, style, or deviance — hollow and performative.
So of course, as always, I would attend this meeting — between a brain-dead but heart-beating human — for myself, not for the sake of some “awareness agenda.”
America’s Transparent Yet Unequal Organ Donation System
In the U.S., the organ donation system appears transparent and trustworthy. If you need an organ, you wait for a donor who has registered and then passed away. You’re added to the waiting list in the state where you’re registered.
But — and here’s the twist — if you’re wealthy enough to travel to another state within 8 hours when your turn comes (say, you have your own jet), you can also register in multiple states. This is how people like Steve Jobs increased their chances of survival:
“By the end of February 2009, Steve Jobs had added himself to the Tennessee list (in addition to California) and the anxious waiting began. By early March, his health deteriorated rapidly. Doctors estimated he would need to wait at least 21 more days. ‘It was terrifying,’ recalled Powell. ‘It didn’t look like Steve could last that long.’ His suffering intensified. By mid-March, he moved from third to second to finally the top of the list. But still, days passed. Saint Patrick’s Day and March Madness were expected to increase the odds of a donor becoming available — due to alcohol-related traffic accidents. Indeed, on March 21, 2009, a young man in his twenties died in a car crash and his organs were donated. Jobs and his wife flew to Memphis.”
— Walter Isaacson, “Steve Jobs”
After this surgery, Apple entered its most brilliant period: we welcomed the iPod Nano, iPad, and iCloud into our lives.
First Surgery: The Elegance of a Donor
One morning, while skateboarding along the Pacific coast, I received the call I’d been waiting for. Just a few hours later, I was invited to an organ transplant surgery scheduled outside the city. The adrenaline of the call was followed by a sharp fall — my first real skateboarding accident. I landed flat on my lower back against hard concrete. After help from those nearby, I recovered from the shock, only to get a follow-up call: “Do you eat meat?” Apparently, brisket was being served during the journey. Despite the pain from the fall, I was comforted knowing I was headed to a hospital.
We flew to the hospital via helicopter — a two-hour journey. The donor was an 85-year-old man who had been declared brain-dead. Surgeons had arrived from various cities to collect his different organs. We were there for the liver.
His body was astonishingly beautiful — from his skin to his nails — appearing remarkably healthy for his age. When the torso was opened and the organs exposed, I was mesmerized. The colors of the tissues were vivid, the surfaces radiant. These are the greatest riches we possess as humans — our only true jewels. They deserve to be protected with care. And this man had done exactly that for 85 years. He had kept his body so well, he could now give it away. It was truly admirable.
I noticed faint black lines in the lungs and asked the lead surgeon. “From the city’s polluted air,” he said. Soon after, we learned the lungs weren’t viable. Despite his appearance, the man had smoked a pack a day — the lung team left empty-handed.
But the liver? It was healthy. We took it, and flew back — with life in our hands, meant for someone else.
Second Surgery: A Body That Gave Up
About a month later, I received the next call. This time, I was allowed to film parts of the operation with my camera. These trips always involved elite transportation. Of course — those handling the recycling of human life were offered the highest level of comfort.
We flew to a state in the middle of the U.S.
The donor this time: a 35-year-old man who had crashed his car while driving drunk. His body looked far older than his age — bald, bloated, tired. Like someone who had given up long ago.
When the body was opened, it took an unusually long time to reach the organs due to layers of fat. His yellow, deformed organs looked tragic compared to the elegant 85-year-old donor from before.
Since then, excess body fat began to disturb me. Every time I saw an overweight person, I imagined a CT scan in full color and felt pity. Now, I no longer feel that way. Maybe they had strong reasons for living like that. Maybe they believed they were born into this world as “nothing,” and never took care of themselves.
Following the surgeon’s guidance, I filmed the critical phases of the procedure. I respectfully asked permission to record the very last heartbeat — the final thump before the organs were removed.
For the recipient, what mattered was the organ. But for me, the final heartbeat became the most profound part of the entire experience.
The Heartbeat That Stopped — and Stayed With Me
For a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the footage. You know that feeling — when something reminds you of a moment so intense that you just pretend it doesn’t exist? I didn’t want to relive it.
I had witnessed the event with my own eyes, yet I was too afraid to face the recording.
When I finally gathered the courage and pressed play, I shivered.
What I felt in that moment surpassed anything I had experienced in art before.
This was how it happened:
The heart, after millions of beats, started to struggle.
It slowed down… and then… came the last one.
The Rejected Installation: “Not Art, But Life”
I thought long and hard about how these experiences could be translated into my artistic practice.
Back in Turkey — impatient as I am — I submitted a proposal to a group exhibition with a piece based on this video. It was a cube-shaped room you could enter, where a sped-up version of the surgery video would loop on a smartphone screen. A poem written by my friend, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, would accompany it. He wrote it as I prepared the application.
Maybe the video didn’t translate. Maybe the presentation was weak. Or maybe the poem was too far out. In any case, the installation proposal was rejected.
And I’m glad it was. If it had been accepted, it might have been wasted.
